Money Management by Low-Income Households: Earning, Spending, Saving, and Accessing Financial Services

Opening and maintaining a checking or savings account at a credit union or bank are crucial steps for establishing the kinds of relationships with financial institutions that lead to qualifying for credit and developing assets. An estimated 22.2 million households or 56 million adults in the U.S. did not have a bank account in 2002. The lack of a bank account is more pervasive among low -income families than higher income families: 83% of families without bank accounts earn less than $25,000 per year. Furthermore, as many as 22$25,000 -- do not have a checking or savings account. Families in the lowest income group are even less likely to have accounts. An estimated 29.1% of families with incomes in the lowest twentieth percentile ($10,300 or less) are without accounts, which is more than three times the median of 9.1$25,000 had bank accounts in 2001, 53.4% of this income group reported having saved in the previous year. For households in the lowest income quintile ($10,300 or less), the savings rate is 30.0%. Furthermore, the reasons for saving differ among income levels, with families at lower income levels saving for more immediate expenditures such as rent and holiday gifts, compared with the longer timeframe of savings by higher income groups for future expenditures such as children's education and retirement

Help to Keep Going as Long as They Need Me: A Report on Seniors Raising Children

This report presents the data from CIR's 2005 survey of 182 Senior Caregivers of DCFS wards, examining the challenges confronting these grandparents and other senior adults as they are increasingly called upon to raise their kin. The findings of this report will assist policy makers and community-based organizations to provide better services, better advocate for their needs of these populations and create better policies and legislating

Quality of Systematic Reviews of Treatment Studies in Neurogenic Communication Disorders

To support evidence based clinical practice, efforts have been initiated to complete systematic reviews of the treatment literature. We searched the literature for systematic reviews of treatment research in neurogenic communication disorders and evaluated the quality of those reviews for 27 criteria (Auperin et al., 1997). Two examiners coded 15 studies identified (6 aphasia, 6 dysarthria, 3 apraxia of speech). Reviews tended to provide good information pertaining to study identification and description. Weaknesses across reviews involved lack of statistical analyses and methods to avoid selection bias. Results of our study suggest ways to improve the quality of future systematic reviews

The Costs and Benefits of School Health Centers: A Fact Sheet Prepared for the Illinois Coalition for School Health

This fact sheet describes the costs and estimates the benefits to the state of Illinois that accrue from thirty-eight School Health Centers that receive partial funding from the Illinois Department of Human Services. The study focuses on benefits from reduced asthma hospitalizations, reduced emergency room visits, and increased immunizations provided for Illinois school-age children

“If I had nae hope… I would either be locked up or deid”: locating hope in desistance

This thesis explores how hope is experienced and understood by those at various stages of the desistance process. This is an interdisciplinary project combining criminology and theology. Hope can of course be viewed through the social structures which create an environment in which hopeful characteristics can be developed and hopeful actions displayed. This is of great significance in this research given the importance of relational support in generating hope which is revealed in the data collected. However, interpreting this data on merely a socially constructed level limits the extent to which we can know the value of hopefulness. The complex nature of human existence and experience can, and should, be examined on various levels, as McGrath suggests, in order that a more rounded picture can be created. The use of theology allows for not only an additional level of knowing, but also a deeper level of examining that which can be known (McGrath 2015). This research offers an invitation to consider a different perspective, it does not contend that this is the only viewpoint, it is one lens which can contribute to a wider and deeper understanding of the overall lives being examined. I do not argue for the existence of God or the need for religion; this project does not lend itself to such discussion. Rather, theology is used as both a guiding analytical tool, and explanatory lens through which participants’ experiences of both hope and desistance can be viewed and understood. Some existing literature shows desisters naming hope as a contributing factor to desistance. Weaver’s (2016) research revealed narratives naming hope, to varying degrees, as a contributing factor to desistance. For some, hope was very targeted, and goal based, whilst others used hope to describe a state of being. Conversely, Schinkel and Nugent (2016) show, that for some, hope often led to disappointment therefore becoming a source of pain rather than encouragement. Halsey et al (2017) found that a sense of hopelessness can often result in re-offending and disturbing the desistance process. The fieldwork for this research began in January 2019 and was completed by the end of October 2019. Participants for this research were male and were recruited on the basis of belonging to one of the groups: (1) those who were serving the last six weeks of a short-term sentence; (2) those who had been out of prison for between three to six months; (3) those who had been out of prison for 2 years or more. The research groups were developed in order to capture a snapshot of how hope is experienced along different stages of the desistance journey. The fieldwork consisted of a creative element: photography; collage; painting and drawing; followed by two interview stages. Photo and image elicitation was used in order to ‘set the scene’ of hope allowing for a natural flow of conversation of what might otherwise be an abstract concept. All participants were interviewed in a semi-structured style alongside their images and those who I was able to maintain contact with were re-interviewed 3 months (Group 1), or 6 months (Groups 2 and 3) after the first interview stage. Using theology as a guide in both fieldwork and analysis has revealed an additional layer to meaning making and the experience of desisters. The research reveals the main sources of hope, such as community, relationships and small acts of mercy. The thesis highlights the main obstacles in hope and how desisters battle with this in order to sustain their desistance journey. I argue that small acts of mercy can have a dramatic impact on desisters hope journeys leading to significant life turning points

A school-commissioned model of speech and language therapy

Many speech and language therapy (SLT) services have limited capacity for providing school-based input. Some offer commissioned SLT input, to enhance the service provided by the UK National Health Service (NHS), giving schools the option to increase the amount and scope of SLT intervention. This two-tiered model of service provision is relatively new and has not been researched. This study investigated the experiences of schools who had commissioned input from the local SLT service, in terms of (1) describing how this was utilized and (2) exploring perceptions of its value. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with special educational needs co-ordinators (SENCos) from 11 schools and were thematically analysed using Framework Analysis. SENCos reported many positive aspects of the commissioned model, including better communication with Speech and Language Therapists (SLTs) and improved outcomes for children. SENCos felt that the numbers of children with speech, language and communication needs (SLCN) had reduced following commissioned input. Very few disadvantages of the model were identified. SLTs delivered a range of activities, including training staff and providing direct input for children. SENCos would recommend the service, and perceived the cost to be moderate. These data suggest that SENCos place a high value on SLT in schools, and welcome the opportunity to purchase additional input

Beyond-brand effect of television food advertisements on food choice in children: The effects of weight status

Copyright © The Authors 2007.Objective - To investigate the effect of television food advertising on children’s food intake, specifically whether childhood obesity is related to a greater susceptibility to food promotion. Design - The study was a within-subject, counterbalanced design. The children were tested on two occasions separated by two weeks. One condition involved the children viewing food advertisements followed by a cartoon, in the other condition the children viewed non-food adverts followed by the same cartoon. Following the cartoon, their food intake and choice was assessed in a standard paradigm. Setting - The study was conducted in Liverpool, UK. Subjects - Fifty-nine children (32 male, 27 female) aged 9–11 years were recruited from a UK school to participate in the study. Thirty-three children were normal-weight (NW), 15 overweight (OW) and 11 obese (OB). Results - Exposure to food adverts produced substantial and significant increases in energy intake in all children (P < 0·001). The increase in intake was largest in the obese children (P = 0·04). All children increased their consumption of high-fat and/or sweet energy-dense snacks in response to the adverts (P < 0·001). In the food advert condition, total intake and the intake of these specific snack items correlated with the children’s modified age- and gender-specific body mass index score. Conclusions - These data suggest that obese and overweight children are indeed more responsive to food promotion, which specifically stimulates the intake of energy-dense snacks.University of Liverpoo

EM-mosaic detects mosaic point mutations that contribute to congenital heart disease.

BackgroundThe contribution of somatic mosaicism, or genetic mutations arising after oocyte fertilization, to congenital heart disease (CHD) is not well understood. Further, the relationship between mosaicism in blood and cardiovascular tissue has not been determined.MethodsWe developed a new computational method, EM-mosaic (Expectation-Maximization-based detection of mosaicism), to analyze mosaicism in exome sequences derived primarily from blood DNA of 2530 CHD proband-parent trios. To optimize this method, we measured mosaic detection power as a function of sequencing depth. In parallel, we analyzed our cohort using MosaicHunter, a Bayesian genotyping algorithm-based mosaic detection tool, and compared the two methods. The accuracy of these mosaic variant detection algorithms was assessed using an independent resequencing method. We then applied both methods to detect mosaicism in cardiac tissue-derived exome sequences of 66 participants for which matched blood and heart tissue was available.ResultsEM-mosaic detected 326 mosaic mutations in blood and/or cardiac tissue DNA. Of the 309 detected in blood DNA, 85/97 (88%) tested were independently confirmed, while 7/17 (41%) candidates of 17 detected in cardiac tissue were confirmed. MosaicHunter detected an additional 64 mosaics, of which 23/46 (50%) among 58 candidates from blood and 4/6 (67%) of 6 candidates from cardiac tissue confirmed. Twenty-five mosaic variants altered CHD-risk genes, affecting 1% of our cohort. Of these 25, 22/22 candidates tested were confirmed. Variants predicted as damaging had higher variant allele fraction than benign variants, suggesting a role in CHD. The estimated true frequency of mosaic variants above 10% mosaicism was 0.14/person in blood and 0.21/person in cardiac tissue. Analysis of 66 individuals with matched cardiac tissue available revealed both tissue-specific and shared mosaicism, with shared mosaics generally having higher allele fraction.ConclusionsWe estimate that ~ 1% of CHD probands have a mosaic variant detectable in blood that could contribute to cardiac malformations, particularly those damaging variants with relatively higher allele fraction. Although blood is a readily available DNA source, cardiac tissues analyzed contributed ~ 5% of somatic mosaic variants identified, indicating the value of tissue mosaicism analyses

Editorial Perspective: Speaking up for developmental language disorder - the top 10 priorities for research

Developmental language disorder (DLD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental conditions, yet is chronically underserved, with far fewer children receiving clinical services than expected from prevalence estimates, and very little research attention relative to other neurodevelopmental conditions of similar prevalence and severity. This editorial describes a research priority-setting exercise undertaken by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, which aims to redress this imbalance. From consultations with researchers, practitioners and individuals with lived experience, 10 research priorities emerge. Our goal is to share these priorities with the wider research community, to raise awareness and encourage research collaboration to improve outcomes for young people with DLD